What a dizzying two weeks of nonsense we’ve witnessed on the presidential campaign trail. So dizzying, in fact, that one candidate – she of a thousand prefixes Hillary Clinton – became TMZ phone-cam fodder when she wobbled in the hands of staffers on her way to a vehicle after a Sept. 11 tribute in the overbearing sun and overbearing endorphins of public appearances. The world gasped, as it does, when it saw the slight shifts of her head on television as she was politely escorted away. Surely that meant that she was unfit to be president. Surely she was chiming a death knell for all the world to hear. Trump for everyone!
And though, by most messaging available to the media, Trump didn’t do his typical headline buzzard routine on something so private as Clinton’s personal health (optics!), he was quick to make note of her absence in recovery from the diagnosed bout of pneumonia from which she was suffering. That came mostly because of Clinton’s savage – but true – attack on Trump supporters as “deplorables.” Show me a Trump supporter who doesn’t have airs of privilege wrapped up in smug smile of “I’ve got mine” or some other prosperity gospel, and I’ll show you a bigot with a confederate flag living right down the road with a Trump sign in his yard.
“If Hillary Clinton will not retract her comments in full, I don’t see how she can credibly campaign any further,” Trump said to the National Guard Association of the United States according to the New York Times.
Credibility is not the same as “the art of the deal,” Trump should know. After all, Trump may be the subject of a more credible probe than those of Clinton’s medical records (Her vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine released his as well, in solidarity). Trump is presently tied up in a campaign finance scandal involving everybody’s favorite blond flip-flop Pam Bondi (more on that below) in addition to numerous law suits that seem to litter his path to glory. And exposing health records is a dirty game.
When was the last time you worked a 17-hour day hopping airplanes and speaking to arenas full of people? When was the last time you called out sick? Clinton can’t, especially now that polls are (as they do) tightening in swing states in advance of the Nov. 8 general election. So as Trump continues to kick dirt into the infected eye of an opponent whose entire Slim Goodbody has now been questioned, picked and thrown on broadsheets by even the most reputable of media sources, then bounces back and shows everyone what she’s made of, Trump will have a lot to answer for when the subjects surrounding governing a nation come up in the debates (the first of which is Sept. 26). Then we shall see who is the most deplorable and the most reliable. I think we already know that answer.
A Jolly Crist-mess
In a debate to end all debates, the endlessly fascinating duo of Democrat (-ish) Charlie Crist and Republican David Jolly, both running for Congressional District 13, dropped from the sky on Sept. 19, leaving a sparkling trail of rhetoric to light up the clouds behind it. The gist from Jolly, of course, was the Crist cannot be trusted. Crist, who likes nice things that exist somewhere around the middle ground, reportedly plead for civility against mean-old-nasty Jolly who quickly ran to the sewer. Or, sewage funding, rather. Jolly lurched for Mayor Rick Kriseman jugular (Jolly says that Kriseman was hiding the problem, though St. Petersburg is terrible with its sewage). Crist brought that one on himself by bringing the issue up in the first place. He asked Jolly why he had not asked for federal dollars to alleviate the situation, in Flint-tones. From there, everything went haywire, the Tampa Bay Times reports. Racism, crime and redistricting floated into the conversation and nobody won. For the record, Crist still loves President Barack Obama, though, so there’s that.
Trump the charities
An explosive Washington Post report on Sept. 20 revealed that the presidential candidate dipped into his charitable foundation to pay his own legal bills over the years, that is if $258,000 can be referred to as “dipping.” The report goes on to name the hilarities that line Trump’s orange-skinned road to relevance: $120,000 in fines to Palm Beach County for his Mar-a-Lago Club because of a flagpole; In lieu of paying that, $100,000 went to “veterans” (though it wasn’t Trump’s money; it was donor cash); one of his golf courses spent $158,000 from the charity to another charity as hush money.
It’s just another chapter in a cycle of abuses that include $30,000 for two portraits of himself. He’s brought “self-dealing” to new heights!
“If he’s using other people’s money – run through his foundation – to satisfy his personal obligations, then that’s about as blatant an example of self-dealing [as] I’ve seen in a while,” Washington law firm analyst Jeffrey Tenenbaum told the Post. Related: Trump stopped giving to his own charity in 2009.
Murphy’s Law
As has been rumored, even since the very public endorsements from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Patrick Murphy’s bid for the U.S. Senate is in trouble. If you’ve turned on your television in the past few hours, you’ve likely seen 300 advertisements against Murphy from various political action committees that look a whole lot like Marco Rubio. In short, he’s being trampled.
Now the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is going to cut spending on the Murphy campaign by 70 percent, presumably raising the white flag in Rubio’s general direction.
Murphy’s campaign is trying not to show its deck, instead insisting that other sources will come to the rescue. The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Senate Majority PAC will pony up $10 million, while AFSCME are in for $1.8 million. Nothing to see here!
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